Some watches earn their reputation through marketing. Others earn it the hard way, by being on the wrist of the right person, at the right moment, in front of the world. The TAG Heuer S/EL is very much in the second category and positions it alongside watches like the Heuer Monaco and the Rolex Daytona.
It's not the loudest watch in the room. It doesn't carry the same name recognition as a Daytona or a Speedmaster. But for a particular kind of collector, the kind of individual who knows their motorsport history, the S/EL sits in a quiet and important spot. It was, after all, the watch fit for a three-time Formula One World Champion, the watch Ayrton Senna chose to wear during the most defining years of his career.
The Story of One of Ayrton Senna's Favourite Watches - The TAG Heuer SE/L
A Quick Word on TAG Heuer
Heuer had been making chronographs since the 1860s, and by the 1970s the brand was as closely tied to motorsport as any in Switzerland. But the late 70s and early 80s were brutal for the Swiss watch industry, and Heuer was no exception. The company survived largely on the back of its dive watches, particularly the 1000 Series introduced in 1978.
In 1986, Techniques d'Avant Garde acquired the business, and TAG Heuer as we know it was born. The S/EL, short for Sports/elegance followed in 1987, and it was the first collection developed entirely under the new TAG Heuer banner. That makes it a genuinely significant piece of the brand's history, regardless of who happened to wear one.
Senna's Watch
Here's where the S/EL's story gets interesting. In 1990, TAG Heuer introduced the S/EL Digital Quartz Chronograph, an analogue / digital hybrid with two small windows at four and eight o'clock, capable of timing to 1/100th of a second. It was a clever piece of engineering and a slightly unusual looking watch, with a 1/100 scale running around the dial and an extra hand at the centre pinion to read it.
Ayrton Senna wore one. Specifically, the bi-metal version with the egg-shell champagne dial (TAG Heuer’s reference S25.706C / CG1123), the example we are offering here under case CG1123-0. He wore a similar version from the mid-1989 season onwards, through the period he was winning World Championships at McLaren, often switching between this champagne version and its anthracite sibling (S25.206 / CG1122). There is no shortage of photographs of Senna with this watch on his wrist from the paddock to the podium. He wore the S/EL during his 1993 Monaco Grand Prix win and at the legendary wet race at Donington that same year which is simply known as “The Lap of The Gods”, and at the end of the season handed his own example to McLaren’s lead mechanic Ron Pellat, fitted with a modified brown leather strap.
An association like this, watches connected to legendary sporting figures, the ones who actually wore them tend to age differently to ones bolted onto a marketing campaign. Senna didn't endorse the S/EL so much as live in it. There's a difference, and the market has come to recognise that.
Why Collectors Are Paying Attention
From where I'm standing as a dealer, the S/EL ticks a lot of boxes that the market is increasingly responsive to:
- It's the first collection developed under the TAG Heuer name.
- It has a genuine, photographable connection to one of the greatest drivers in F1 history.
- The design is iconic enough that it's still in production under a different name.
- Prices, by any reasonable measure, are still soft compared to what the watch represents.
That last point is the one I'd flag most clearly. Senna died in 1994, and his standing in motorsport hasn't dimmed in the decades since, if anything, the opposite. Watches with this kind of provenance tend to find their level eventually. The S/EL is, in my view, still short of where it should be.
It's also, refreshingly, a watch you can still buy without remortgaging the house. From a dealer's perspective, the S/EL is one of those pieces that I genuinely enjoy finding for the right person, because I know they're getting more watch, and more history, than the price tag suggests.
Ian Walsh is a qualified watchmaker and founder of Watches of Lancashire, a specialist vintage watch dealer and workshop established in 2016. With over 30 years’ experience servicing and trading classic timepieces, he has dedicated his career to preserving and understanding the finer details of horological history.
You can learn more about his shop and see the watches he has available now through this link.
